This is the first year we have run a decent haunt. What can we expect for crowds Halloween night? Being a Sunday and good weather. Are Halloween nights usually kickin or is it kind of slow?
Our daytime festival is always kind of slow Halloween day, but a lot of things change here when the sun goes down.
Thanks everybody.
--Lucas

From what I have found much of your attendance on Halloween night depends on 3 things....

1) Advertising that you are open on Halloween.
If people dont know that then you WILL NOT get visitors.

2) Demographics.
Depending on your area will also depend on if you get ANY customers on halloween. For me this year ( and years past) for my home haunt we only did one night .. Halloween. Last year in a 4- 5 hour span we had approx 200+ people come through. Granted that NOT alot from a commercial stand point, but considering the demographics of the area its not bad.

3) The Day halloween happens to fall on.
YES this also plays an important part. Especially if you are, like myself, only doing a "one night stand" if it falls on Friday or Saturday, as long as its not conflicting with your local schools sports schedule, then you might get a good turn out. If however it happens to fall on a sunday(as it does this year) .. or mid week .. AND on a day that your local school happens to have some sports activities OR if your city or town decides to change Trick or Treat times or days( yes it HAS happened when Halloween falls on a Sunday they you might just get screwed as far as attendance.

Granted YES much of this depends on the area your haunt is in.. and I 100% understand that.

The commericial hanunts that I know of in this area (WNY) are NOT normally open on Halloween. And from the ones i have seen through the years that ARE open on Halloween, thier crowds are not that big.

In that way for a home haunter it allows us more "exposure" to the public.

Trick or treating, costume contests,parades, normal businesses that promote events that night and of course the time it takes out of that night to vandalize your neighbors, hide in the bushes from the patrol cars..."Tick-Tock-Tick-tock" and that night is gone.
Here at The Ravens Grin it usually backs off quite a bit but then maybe people are giving the October -Only haunts around here the last "Hurrah" since they usually won't be open for another year. (Open here year-round)
I have also gotten the impression that some stay home that night because they assume the haunts would be too crowded for their liking. "Wrong!?"

Halloween is so busy for us, we charge MORE that night to encourage them to come OTHER nights. Maybe it's a regional thing-- we're in Florida-- maybe these other places that have slow nights are up North. Or maybe it's just that a positive word of mouth buzz for our haunt builds to its peak on the last night. I can only guess.

We usually charged $3 more to come on Halloween night. This year, being a Sunday, we only nixed the use of any coupons, meaning people can't get an optional $1 off. I don't know what effect the Sunday aspect will have on it but we'll find out soon enough.

One other consideration: Our haunt is geared toward intense scares, and our largest demographic by far is age 18 to 28. The college crowd comes to us first, then goes on to the late night Halloween parties. Haunts that cater to younger audiences maybe competing with trick or treating. If I were a kid, I'd rather go get free candy on Halloween and pay for the haunt one of the other nights. In general, we get less the 5% non-adult traffic.